The Parenting Minefield That is Social Media

Every child is just one decision away from making a mistake. As parents, we hope to help them avoid these mistakes by teaching responsibility – but, errors in judgment are an important part of the learning process on the road to adulthood. Unfortunately, the Internet introduces new challenges in parenting. Now, in the blink of an eye – with one silly post, or one tweet in anger and defiance, in an instant our children can lose control of a situation.

Today, my teen posted something snarky on Facebook. Luckily, I happened to log on and see it, and had her take it down almost immediately. She was annoyed at another girl, and said something funny/mean. Aside from the bullying factor – there is the simple fact that once something is posted – it can immediately be “shared” by others, and with that any control over a post is lost. Arguments between two children quickly escalate into arguments between dozens…or more.

I find myself cringing at what kids post on Facebook quite often. I have young cousins in my “Friends Feed” and more than occasionally their judgment leaves much to be desired.

Twitter has its own dangers, as we saw this week when a Clark, NJ teen posted that there was a stranger in her home and she asked people to call 9-1-1 . In a split second she sparked what was likely an expensive false alarm. Happily, she has since been located and while it may turn out that her actions were a cry for help of another nature – if her Tweet was sent out in a momentary flash of anger or frustration – its repercussions will likely be felt for quite some time.

All of these instances of children making mistakes online is occurring as large firms push back on the very basic regulatory protections for minors online that are outlined in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Facebook this week declared in a letter to the FTC that the “Like” button should be protected by Freedom of Speech.

“A “like” counts as free speech, the company has repeatedly argued, and muzzling a user’s ability to “like” something on Facebook would infringe on a user’s constitutional rights. “A government regulation that restricts teens’ ability to engage in protected speech — as the proposed Coppa Rule would do — raises issues under the First Amendment,” Facebook wrote in its letter.” (SOURCE)

There are few “safe places” for kids online – as we are continually learning. With the FTC announcing investigations of General Mills, and McDonalds, we have watched major companies, which parents have grown to implicitly trust after years of branding efforts, transformed overnight into online “bad guys”.

“Children who visit McDonald’s HappyMeal.com, for instance, can “get in the picture with Ronald McDonald” by uploading photos of themselves and combining them with images of the clown. Children may also “star in a music video” on the site by uploading photos or webcam images and having it graft their faces onto dancing cartoon bodies.

But according to children’s advocates, McDonald’s stored these images in directories that were publicly available. Anyone with an Internet connection could check out hundreds of photos of young children, a few of whom were pictured in pajamas in their bedrooms, advocates said.” (SOURCE)

Building sites where parents can oversee their children’s activities has proven to be difficult for many firms. It’s a challenge we think too few entrepreneurs have focused on.

At Hatchedit.com we have built a micro social network around scheduling and organizational tools for families. Parents can establish an account for their children, giving them their own logins and passwords that allow them to post to the family page. On Hatchedit.com children are not searchable, nor can they connect with anyone outside the immediate family, unless their parents choose to invite them to a group chat with other people. We feel that sharing pictures within a family unit and participating in family communications through to do lists, calendaring, and chatting is a great way to introduce children to social networking in a controlled environment.

As entrepreneurs focused on the family and social networking we have also recently learned of a Canadian Startup that aims to help families safeguard children on their cell phones. The entrepreneurs at KytePhone, allow parents to limit the connections their children can make on their Android cell phones. The app, once installed on a phone, allows you to oversee which apps your child has access to, limit the contacts that your child can have on the phone, and lets parents allocate specific amounts of time to game playing.

I gave my daughter a cell phone so that as a working mom – I would be able to get a hold of her between school and afterschool sports and activities. The cell phone is my lifeline to her, but it is also a window that opens into a whole world of potential trouble.

According to the CDC “In the US, 46% of kids aged 8-12 have a cell phone, most getting them between the ages of 10-11″ (SOURCE) Another important fact? 55% of these kids also report being victims of bullying. (SOURCE)

“The interesting statistic is that 28% of parents don’t take any steps on teaching their kids the value of mobile safety,” KytePhone Partner Anooj Shah told me, citing statistics from a survey of Canadian parents. ”We believe that is because they aren’t aware of a proper solution. We hope Kytephone can change that.”

The Kytephone app also gives parents oversight with details like call logs, photo logs, and gps mapping. As a mom who typically sneaks into her daughter’s room at night to check in and make sure there are no teenage texting wars unfolding under my nose, the KytePhone dashboard offers a means to more easily protect my child.

The combination of cell phones and Internet access has proven to be a parenting minefield for many of us. There are so many people focused on pushing our children to live their lives without the privacy that we took for granted growing up, it is important to support the entrepreneurs that are focusing on leveling the playing field for parents.

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